Ottoman Artillery (1)

I mentioned that I've been working on Ottomans for my Napoleon in Egypt project.  I finally managed to get my camera out at the weekend, so I'll have a series of posts this week to get up to date.  I thought I'd work backwards and start off with my Ottoman "grand battery". This consists of three of the Perry Miniatures "heavy artillery" packs with large field pieces (catalogue number OT36 - so not the super-massive piece just released. As seems standard now with Perry ranges, the crews come in boxes of 6 figures and the guns are purchased separately.  I extracted a few of the figures and added a standard bearer from the irregular infantry command pack (OT13) to make up a couple of battery command stands.  The guns and crews are based on Renedra plastic 65mm x 90mm bases.  Even with these larger bases, I find the guy with the ramrod in loading crews invariably needs to be based separately, as there just isn't enough space.

The colour schemes for the gunners is taken from Chris Flaherty's "The Napoleonic Ottoman Army".  Published by Caliver, this book is essential if you want to build an Ottoman Army. In broad terms, there was the standard distinction between "heavy" and "light" guns. The type of heavy field gun shown in this unit was called a "kolunburna" and appears to have changed very little over the past century or two. It probably equated to a 19.5 pounder in European money. The crew themselves are a mix of figures in standard Ottoman irregular dress and then a rather fancy yellow uniform which seems to have been used for heavy guns crews and another unit called the "humbaraci", which operated mortars and howitzers.   The flag is taken from an illustration in the Flaherty book.  It may or may not be correct for this type of unit, but who cares - with a brass gun barrel on a red field it does at least look the part.    

I wanted to create a bit of an emplacement, as Ottoman heavy artillery seems to have to have been entrenched during battle, and so used Renedra's plastic gabions. These are relatively easy to put together, but the top is simply a plastic disc so you need to add your own "earth".  I painted the gabions themselves with GW Citadel paints - a base of "Rhinox Hide" then drybrushed highlights of "Gorthor Brown" and "Baneblade Brown".

I have two further guns and crews already painted, and will post those up when I've finished a third.

19 figures and 3 guns. Painted December 2024 to February 2025.